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John Carlin Writes that Zuma Has Revealed His Vindictiveness in His Treatment of Tutu

“For Zuma to call on South Africans to cherish and preserve the spirit of Mandela while treating Tutu, who incarnates Mandela’s spirit as no one else does, with nasty, shabby contempt is vile hypocrisy,” John Carlin writes in a column for Business Day, about Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu not being given a central role in the funeral and memorials held for Nelson Mandela.

“He has revealed himself to be exactly what so many suspected: a vindictive little man in presidential furs, a petty-minded usurper who has no right to call himself Mandela’s heir or a worthy leader of Mandela’s people,” Carlin says. “Let the booing continue, let it rise to a crescendo of national indignation, until he is driven out of office, all the way home to Nkandla.”

Every word that President Jacob Zuma has uttered in praise of Nelson Mandela in recent days is rendered hollow and meaningless by his treatment of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

Whatever the twisted decision-making whereby Tutu was sidelined from the two major events in memory of Mandela, the service at the FNB Stadium and the funeral in Qunu, the fact is the buck stops with Zuma. Had he wished to intervene and place Tutu centre stage, where he belonged, he could have done so. Yet he chose not to. And in that hand-washing, Pontius Pilate abnegation of responsibility he has revealed himself to be exactly what so many suspected: a vindictive little man in presidential furs, a petty-minded usurper who has no right to call himself Mandela’s heir or a worthy leader of Mandela’s people.